A Brunettes' Revenge
by Edlama
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Shizune and Iruka find something to bond over. Shizune/Iruka main, also Gaara/Naruto. Mild swearing. An extraordinary late christmas present for my lovely beta, carcaptor eternity!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimers:**** I don't own Naruto, Iruka or Shizune. And not Gaara either, which is really a depressing thought. **

**Of course, it is totally ludicrous to wish a Merry Christmas in the middle of March, but that was supposed to be a christmas fic (why yes, I am late) for Cardcaptor_eternity in reward for her excellent beta work on all of my stories, so... Merry Super Belated Christmas, Eternity-chou! You requested a Shizune/Iruka christmas story, I hope this will please you!**

**A big THANKS to Audrey, who undertook the beta-ing for that story. Her very thorough work made me realise that a punch glass can be full of milk, and that a gang of chicken could have the kind of innuendo you normally don't associate with chicken. Just for that, I owe you big! :D**

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**A Brunettes' Revenge:**

The end of the year was traditionally a time to reflect on your life: what you'd done during the past months, what you would be doing in the upcoming ones, asking yourself the usual questions : who am I, what am I doing with my life, what's my place in the Universe, where has my Youth gone, and so on and so on.

It was a wretched, wretched thing that this period during which everybody tried to find sense in their existence, or more prosaically tried to find some magic formula to make it happier, more meaningful or just more successful, also occurred at the same time as Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Because really, these were the two most booze-inducing Holidays of the year, a couple of weeks that everyone spent more or less half inebriated. Hardly the best moment to make a judgement on your life, and yet tradition and the calendar came together to make it happen.

The 'Happy Drunk' had it the best. They would wake up sometime around January the 3rd, with the kind of pain in the abdomen signalling an abused liver trying to gnaw its way out, and a splitting headache that would limit all life-altering decisions to an "I'M NEVER GETTING DRUNK AGAIN" that come next year, they would have forgotten all about.

The 'Depressed Drunk', unfortunately already prone by nature to dramatize, could be found on Christmas Eve or St Sylvester's night, sobbing dramatically on some friend's shoulder or the first shoulder available, really. That was embarrassing enough. But on top of that they might either drunkenly slur things like "you' my best mate, y'know? T's you n'me n' the un-hic-verse…' and try to jump the poor soul lending a compassionate ear, or they might simply end up sobbing harder, and telling a person they barely knew why their life is a failure, and how, deep inside, they had always wanted to be a ballerina.

Shizune was not a happy drunk. She was not much of a drunk actually, but when she did indulge a bit, she was definitely of the sobbing sort. And now it was Christmas Eve, at Tsunade-sama's special Christmas party. All the warning signs were there: it was one of the most depressing times of the year and she was enduring it, not in a warm environment amongst loving relatives (like every person who had grown up without one, Shizune had an idealized vision of family life), but at her _Boss_'s place, surrounded by all the nutcases she was forced to work with all year, and who were just as much social misfits as she was. And there was plenty of booze.

Clearly, she was bound to finish the evening draped miserably over someone.

She took a swig of her glass of punch which, as tradition would have it, had been spiked beyond measure by pranksters –and somewhat immature- Jounin, till fruit juice was only present in homeopathic quantities, and Reflected.

She was 32, and single. She was alive and still in possession of all her limbs, which was quite an achievement in a Shinobi world. She was the best medic in Hi no Kuni, only second to Tsunade-sama, and virtually ruled Konoha's hospital with an iron fist. She was the Hokage's assistant, and a powerful kunoichi that caused all the jounin and lower ranks, to bow before her. All in all, she was a much respected figure in Konohagakure.

It sucked balls.

She was 32, and she was single. All her achievements became meaningless in the face of those words. Her position did not help her feel any better about it. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because of this, she was always holding people at arm's length.

She drained her glass and grimaced, but it was not due to the alcohol.

Nooooo… she was wrong, actually. People held _her_ at arm's length. The respect they showed her… who she was kidding, they did not respect her, they were just afraid of her and her boss, especially those no-balls Konohan shinobi. What a bunch of chickens. She was tired of being the most gutsy of…

"Shizune-san?"

"Uuuwhhaaa?" she snarled at the male voice.

Iruka cringed a bit, and she immediately felt sorry. He was, after all, one of the rare people who could understand her. Just like her, he had a considerate nature that had made him choose a career in which he would help others. Just like her, he had an organized streak that made him a precious help in administrative matters.

Just like her, his life was ruled by an energetic blond charge whose short temper and bad habits would be the death of him, one day.

Two years ago, Naruto had been designated by Tsunade as her eventual successor. He was now shadowing her every steps, learning the job of Hokage right from the one currently in charge, just like his father had learned from Sandaime. Shizune could only agree with that decision, she had been at the front lines to witness the horrible organizational mess following Tsunade's nomination. However, it also meant having to deal with Naruto on a _daily_ basis.

Naruto was not so horrible alone, but along with Tsunade, it was a bit too much for her to manage; when Naruto harassed her with stupid questions the Sannin used the opportunity to escape her duties and drink sake.

Or rather, she was pretty sure that is was what would have happened if Iruka hadn't been there to bear the blunt of the blonde's attention. It was he that the Kyuubi container had chosen as his personal assistant, and Shizune had grown to like him a bit and respect him even more; obviously someone who could bear with the too energetic, too loud successor of Tsunade had to be a saint.

And apparently, his saintly patience had been especially tried today. Well, she supposed that in a party full of people who all had an approach to humour similar to that of a bowling ball hurtling toward a strike, you had to be very patient if you happened to be wearing a Santa Costume in a Christmas Party, like he was. Of course, Naruto himself was wearing the full reindeer attire, but jokes were glancing off the happy ball of sunshine like water off a duck.

Shizune grinned. "So… Santa Claus, here to see if I was being a good girl?" she immediately blushed at the -involuntary- innuendo behind her words, but Iruka just sighed and answered:

"That joke is not so funny after the 43rd time, Shizune-san."

Her smile widened a bit. "You're making that number up."

"Unfortunately, no." he dropped to the chair next to hers. She would have been flattered at the attention if she hadn't suspected that he chose that place mostly because of its ideal location next to the punch bowl. "But I have to admit that Kakashi-san alone made that joke 15 times. He is quite drunk."

'… _or quite horny.'_ Shizune snickered, but only shook her head when the brown-haired man raised a polite eyebrow at her.

They spent a few minutes in something that couldn't quite pass for a companionable silence, but was certainly not an awkward one.

Iruka had taken off the false beard, red hat and extra pillow, and was sipping his third glass of punch with a faraway expression. Shizune had reclined on her seat and closed her eyes, trying to enjoy a few moments of peace before her boss managed to monopolize her time.

Unfortunately her ears soon made out the sound of cheers and whistles, coming from one corner of the reception hall. She opened her eyes warily, and immediately wished she hadn't.

"Don't." she said to Iruka, who had started to refill his glass.

"Huh?" He looked at her, surprised. She briefly noted that he was really handsome when his ponytail was messed up with a few misbehaving locks framing his face.

'_Too bad the guy in himself is pretty tame.'_ She thought.

"Why?" he asked with a slight pout. Yeah, definitely cute.

"Because our respective burdens, I mean bosses…" she pointed to something behind his back. "…are apparently having a 'who has the biggest tits' competition of sorts."

Iruka froze. "Do I want to see?" he whined.

"I'm afraid you'll have to." Shizune answered, not without sympathy. "Naruto is using sexy jutsu and he keeps puffing his chest. I think he's either going to explode or suffocate himself. That is, if he's not first mauled by the crowd of drunken shinobi watching him."

She doubted the latter had any chance of happening. The Kazekage, invited to the party along with his diplomats, was hovering protectively beside the table on which the present and future of Konoha were having their little show. He was sporting a pair of plastic reindeer horns and a ferocious expression and bizarrely, on him these were not mutually exclusive.

Iruka was already heading toward the makeshift stage when his protégé suddenly toppled backward with a screech, helped by an alcohol-addled sense of equilibrium and a very nasty chest-shove from Tsunade.

Fortunately the Kazekage was immediately behind him to cushion his fall. He scooped the blonde, whose henge vanished in a poof, up in his arms and all but snarled at the assembled ninjas: "Show's over."

They reached them just as the Suna Leader –after several attempts- made Naruto reacquaint himself with the idea of feet and verticality. It would have been easier if the blond's priority hadn't been hugging the redhead and looking at him with stars filled eyes.

"Gaara-chan, my hero! You saved me!" Shizune tried to stifle her giggles at the very resigned face the Kazekage made, but lost the battle as soon as the Leaf shinobi began nuzzling his friend's neck.

"Gaara-sama, I'm sorry about that." Iruka said, obviously mortified. He tried to pry his molesting charge away from the redhead, but Gaara himself shook his head.

"It's alright. I'll put him to bed."

Iruka bowed deeply. "Thank you very much for taking care of the little miscreant, Kazekage-sama. He hardly deserves a friend like you." Said Kazekage just waved the apologies away and set to steer Naruto toward the exit, in a more or less straight line.

Shizune watched them depart with a smile, and then turned her attention to her own boss. Tsunade was jumping up and down in 'victory', much to the interest of the Jounin who hadn't been frightened away by the Suna Leader. But when the Hokage started to challenge the people remaining to wrestling matches, the crowd rapidly cleared.

Her assistant snorted, deciding that her boss was indeed fine. She returned to her previous spot next to the alcoholic area, but was surprised –if slightly pleased- to hear Iruka quickly trot to catch up with her.

"So you're leaving Tsunade-sama alone?" he asked, but she guessed that he was just making conversation and not questioning her judgement.

"Yes. She's actually less dangerous right now; she only snaps when sober because then she's _always_ hung-over... she'll be horrible come tomorrow." The medic-nin winced, thinking of the next day.

"But yeah, usually she's quite the happy drunk." She selected a drink from the 'refreshment' table and held it up. "Unlike me; I'm quite the gloomy drunk. Or Naruto, who's quite the destructive drunk. You were actually in a tighter spot than me up there."

Iruka shook his head, smiling a little. "I'm very lucky that Naruto has a friend as dedicated as the Kazekage. He always manages to bring him to his room when things heat up. It's a wonder that Naruto hasn't succeeded in tiring him out yet."

Shizune had to snicker at this. "Yeah, 'friend', right." The laugh died in her throat, however, when the brown haired man looked at her, obviously surprised at her reaction.

'_Oh shit_,' she thought, just as Iruka's face went from perplexed to a mixture of dawning realization and horror, '_it was not a clever innuendo, it was an oblivious one_.'

She winced as the brown-haired turned all kinds of interesting colors, with "freaked-out green" and "throbbing-vein purple" dominating his little rainbow of emotions.

He finally snatched Shizune's drink and gulped it in one go.

"That little shit-!" He exclaimed, and the medic-nin shrinked slightly in the face of that unadulterated wrath.

"So he... And then he... GAH!" He tightened his fists, and the glass was ground to mere sparkly dust without even cutting the tan skin of his hand. "And he did NOT tell ME!"

Shizune watched, mesmerized, as the kind and amiable man turned into a batshit-crazy psychotic bear in less than five seconds. He then turned the full force off his angry glared to the woman next to him, and she started slightly.

"How long?" he snarled.

She held up both her hand defensively. "I don't know!" she protested. This was actually quite a lie, since Tsunade-sama had always insisted, on the basis of being quite a talented medic-nin and a nosey kind of person, on giving the Kazekage a full medical check-up on each of his diplomatic visits.

Of course, Tsunade was no male-gynaecologist of any kind, but when the Kazekage came to your office with a huge love bite on his neck, a nervous stutter and horribly technical questions for a 'friend' who has 'er, a guy he really likes, who sort of hosts a demon in his body', you didn't have to be a specialist to understand what was going on. For once, Shizune had let her boss indulge in as much sake as she wished afterwards.

But either Iruka didn't smell the lie or did not wish to pursue the issue further. He suddenly seemed to deflate, anger all but vanishing in the blink of an eye. He sat tiredly next to Shizune, and after a moment, said:

"I suppose it's quite irrelevant for me to be worried now about sexual education, whether or not he is Ready or the Depth of his Feelings and the Importance of Commitment?"

"Er…"

Iruka raised a hand. "Never mind."

The medic-nin awkwardly patted his forearm. "If it makes you feel any better, I think they're happy together."

The young man sighed. "I think so. Naruto seems always so cheerful when he's visiting..." A shadow fell on his handsome face.

"But he should have told me himself. No offence meant to you, but it is kinda humiliating to hear about it from a third party."

"Every teen needs a bit of a secret garden. Or so I've heard." Shizune shrugged. "Or maybe he was afraid about the way you might react about him having a boy, er, boyfriend."

"If it's the latter, then I'm going to be *_really_* angry. He should know me better than that." He made to reach for another glass of punch, but then stopped, his eyes widening. He dropped his face in his hands.

"Oh nooo. Nononono ... No! I can't believe it!" he moaned.

"What?" Shizune asked, quite alarmed. She thought that everything had been said about the 'Naruto and Gaara' situation, so what could possibly set him off now?

"I've just realised..." The shinobi then sent her a funny look and hid in his hands once more. "Never mind."

Shizune frowned and pulled at his fingers until she could one of his eyes. "You're freaking me out. Tell me what the matter is."

Iruka winced and pried his sore hand away from her grasp. "No," he said sulkily "It's embarrassing, and you're going to laugh."

The medic-nin looked at the blush that was invading his face. Curiosity was eating her.

"Come on." She said, her face as honest as she could manage while being slightly intoxicated. "I won't laugh, I promise."

The shinobi was now as red as a tomato, and his eyes were looking everywhere but toward her.

"It's... I've just realised... that my student got laid *_before_* me. How unfair that is?" he wailed, and dropped his head in his hands once more.

"Thanks for not laughing at me." He added some time later.

'_I'm too busy being mortified on both our behalves.' _Shizune thought, but did not say.

She contemplated the depths of her punch glass, a thing she usually did when she had far more alcohol in her body. But Iruka had given her something to think about. She had always known that some men were excited by virgins but she had never suspected that it could be the same for women... until now.

She put her glass next to her and leaned toward the embarrassed chuunin, and whispered seductively to him.

"Very unfair indeed. But it's not too late to take some sorf of... action?"

Iruka raised his head and looked at her, obviously surprised. Shizune willed herself not to blush, or babble her nervousness away. Then the shinobi's face lit up and he jumped on his feet, smiling at her.

"You're right of course! I know just what to do."

'_Well, duh.'_ Shizune thought.

"I'm going to get revenge! I'm going to play a prank that little blonde weasel!"

The medic-nin blinked. _'Why, why do I always fail to inspire lust in men's hearts?'_

"There is that, " She sighed. "But... wait. Play a prank? You would know how to do that?"

She had serious doubts about it. She could not imagine the respectable teacher and so reliable assistant of the future Hokage playing pranks like a naughty schoolboy.

But once more, he proved himself to be full of surprises. He winked at her.

"Well, I do spend a lot of time around Naruto... but more importantly, I used to be a real prankster back in my young days... I often brought my teachers to tears." He added, in a far too wistful tone for a respectable academy teacher.

Shizune looked at him, eyes slightly widened. That man was indeed not what he seemed at first sight. For one, he was more interesting than he let on. She briefly wondered if the same thing could be said of her.

"So... you have an idea?" She asked.

He grinned at her. "Yep."

He told her. Her admiration grew tenfold. So he had an evil side as well; she must have this man. But before that...

"Mind if I hijack your plot?" she asked.

She had her own boss to deal with.

TBC

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**It's a two parts fic, and the next part is coming soon! (I needed to post it before sending ~9,000 words of Inner Obstacle to Pamy-chou, so I won't be yelled at too much… right?)**

**Next!**** Unpleasant morning for Tsunade and Naruto… and an early one for a bunch of unlikely Christmas elves…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Baaaack! Sorry for the delay, my previous beta has gone missing... I do hope nothing worse than exams happened to her. :(**

**So, I have to thanks Tasukin (aka Tsusami) for (nicely) bullying me into accepting her beta help. Frankly I've been an ungrateful troll because I didn't want to. Being beta-ed by someone whose writing you admire a lot? It's like being spotted by the guy you're crushing on while wearing old clothes, no make-up on and hairy legs. **

**But of course she was of tremendous help, so THANK YOU tasukin! Any remaining mistakes is because I messed up with her corrections.**

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**Chapter 2**

Naruto didn't know if it was the pounding at his door or the pounding in his head that woke him, there was no ignoring either.

Yet he tried. He burrowed his nose in his soft, spicy and slightly sweaty smelling pillow, willing the outside world to fuck off. But his pillow heaved a sigh and rolled away. Naruto made a desperate grab for it and opened his eyes just in time to be greeted by the very pleasant sight of his boyfriend bending over in search of his underwear. The wannabe Hokage resisted blinking against the morning light, not wanting to miss one bit of the show.

"Who the fuck would come –yawn- at this hour, and on this day?" he groaned. Now that he was fully awake, he could hear that whoever was knocking on the door was not really _pounding _on it. It was more of a brisk knock, announcing someone who was not at all pissed to be out of bed so early, but actually quite eager to start the day as efficiently as possible. It even has some sort of happy rythm about it. It was the kind of knock that make him wish a painful death on the person able to produce it.

Gaara straightened, holding a piece of ripped cloth in his hand and eying it sadly. "I don't know." he sighed. His face, already one of the least cheerful around, darkened even further. He passed a hand through his red locks and not bothering with hiding his nakedness anymore, strode toward the door. "But they're going to regret it."

Naruto grinned. Normally the fact that Gaara was about to be spotted naked by someone in _his_ room and certain to maul that same someone would have freaked him out quite a bit; but right now the annoying bugger really deserved to die... or really deserved to be scared away permanently.

He rolled onto his back and winced as something hard poked his ass. He reached for the offensive object and brought back a pair of plastic reindeer horns. He smiled at the memory. Gaara had promised all kinds of retaliations for making him wear those, and he couldn't wait. He was already a bit sore but...

Then he registered footsteps approaching and realised that he had failed to hear the pain-filled screeches that usually followed a meeting with a pissed off Gaara.

Just as his brain came to the only conclusion available and made him scramble hastily for bedsheets to cover himself, Gaara strolled back to the room, still gloriously naked and followed by... Rock Lee?

Naruto groaned. Just his luck that the annoying bugger had to be the only other Leaf Shinobi the Kazekage wouldn't want to hurt.

The green-clad ninja shifted the huge cardboard box he was carrying so he could execute a very spirited salute. "Yosh! Naruto-kun! I must say, I am greatly pleased to see you up and ready to fight so early in the morning! It is my deepest regret that I have to interrupt such a youthful display of fighting spirit, but my mission is of great importance, and Iruka-sensei insisted, it's extremely urgent..."

Naruto looked up at him with his best 'dead fish' eyes. Fighting spirit? Iruka? Mission?

"Of course, you and our dear friend the Kazekage can resume your training session later if we make enough progress in the day."

Naruto gaped, while Gaara barely managed to hide his choking laugh with a cough. What kind of person would enter his room at dawn, find him in his bed covered in bruises and naked with another shinobi in a similar state and assimilate that with "early bout of morning _training_"?

He looked at the round dark eyes, alight with the kind of fire fueled by a pathological form of goodwill and loyalty.

Well, Rock Lee, for sure: the guy who breathed to train and train and _train_. Of course, Naruto loved training, but he didn't mind putting a bit of Gaara between his sessions. Hey, they too were doing something pretty energy-consuming.

Rock Lee continued on, still floating high on the clouds of innocence.

"... and this form of training, without clothes on, looks very interesting! Nothing to hold onto or grip, it's down to pure taijutsu to gain the upper hand! Even if you do seemto have caught a cold, Gaara-san... wait a minute, I think I have some pastilles for that cough... Anyway, I _must_ join you one of these days."

Gaara immediately stopped laughing and straightened, watching Lee with a leer.

But before he could open his mouth, a pillow zoomed in his direction. The sand eviscerated it lazily, spraying feathers everywhere, but the message had been delivered with a special postscriptum in the form of Naruto's furious glare.

Basically, it said: 'It will snow in Suna before you're allowed in a threesome. And stop thinking perverted things all the time!'

Gaara retorted with a raised brow that clearly stated that someone who used clones in _that_ way shouldn't be allowed to play the offended virtue.

Naruto 'hmpfed', a sound implying: 'the discussion is closed for the moment but wait till we're alone, sand freak.'

He addressed Lee who was watching the feathery rain with a puzzled frown. "Yeah, thanks but no thanks, Lee. And well, there's a lot of room for Gaara's skills *in taijutsu* to improve" _That _wiped the smirk off the redhead's face. "... but he won't try our kind of training with others, RIGHT?"

The Kazekage rolled his eyes, but there was the hint of a smile tugging at his lips when he looked back at his lover. Said man blushed and focused his attention back on Lee.

"Ahem. Remind me why you're here again?"

"Oh. Right!" Lee lay the cardboard box down on the bed. The mattress sank ominously and Naruto eyed it warily; he had a bad feeling about that box: it managed to emit a very dull aura.

"I had a missive from Shizune-san this morning." Naruto's feeling of dread increased at the name. "She reminds you that Iruka has to play Santa-claus for the Academy Students today, so without your assistant you don't have to go to the Hokage tower tomorrow, er that is, today."

Naruto's spirits lifted. He had already reached that conclusion yesterday.

But Rock Lee was not done. "However, she brought to my attention that you were somehow really behind in paperwork, so she wishes for you to use that day off to progress a bit on some of the more pressing topics such as..." Lee rumaged in the box and produced a thick stack of papers "The report on how to improve the security in the new sewage system."

"But it's Christmas!" Naruto protested, aghast.

Lee's face immediately took the contrived and reproachful look of the one who has to go up against his superior.

"Shizune-san anticipated such protests, and wished to remind you that being a Kage entails having no days off." Lee was probably the only shinobi who could proffer, straight-faced, such an enormity while working under Tsunade's orders. He pumped a fist. "Besides, Shizune-san entrusted me with the success of this mission. I will help you, Naruto-kun!"

Swift like the wind, Naruto changed tactics.

"Ah, but the thing is, the Kazekage here and myself already have plans to ... diplomatic stuff." Lee's face fell a bit; he was obviously torn between his ingrained desire to succeed his self-imposed mission and not dispute the Kazekage's authority. Naruto rounded on his boyfriend for support. "Right, Gaara?"

But Gaara smiled and if that grin could not compare to his old Shukaku-crazy one, it definitely lacked Christmas spirit. The young man straightened and made his way toward the door, nodding to Lee as he passed him.

"Nothing that can't wait until tonight, Naruto_-kun_. Obviously this is more important."

Naruto gaped in horror at his departing boyfriend. In a bit of desperation-enhanced creativity, he shouted, "But... I would have Suna _take the lead_ in the negotiations! And..." here he hesitated, but sexual allusions were bouncing off Lee's thick mental walls like pebbles on a mountain. "And Konoha would have _swallowed _a lot of compromises!"

Gaara did not stop. He just turned, put his two hands up on his head, both index fingers pointing toward the ceiling. His eyes shone with mirth as he mouthed silently behind Lee's back, 'Reindeer horns'. Then in a whirlwind of sand he teleported his naked ass toward his own suite and out of Naruto's reach.

Naruto stared at the vacant spot till Lee's cheerful voice sliced sharply through his indignant stupor.

"What would you like to start with, Naruto-kun? The review about the new academy's calculus courses or the preliminary plan on the third training ground's construction?

This was going to be the worst Christmas ever.

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Tsunade frowned at the blurry note on her desk. So Shizune was with Naruto, backing him in a corner and forcing him to do some long-forgotten paperwork heh? She chuckled evilly, then groaned when her brain seemed to kick directly at her forehead, as if to say: "Are you stupid, remember I'm hungover here!"

She waited a moment for the painful throb to recede. She made her way toward her office; today she felt –like many mornings before- like her hair was growing inside her skull and her eyeballs had connected roots with her teeth and like her stomach had relocated itself in her mouth. But she had the remedy for that; sneering at Shizune's coffee mug in passing, she reached for a heavy scroll on a shelf, behind it was –_nothing_!

Tsunade frowned, puzzled. She was pretty sure she had not emptied the contents of that hidden spot _yet_. Oh well, there still was the huge decorative jar in the corridor –empty, fucking gods!

She went through all the hidden spots in which she usually put her bottles of sake. None of them were there. Okay, no trouble. There were plenty of places where she could buy sake, no need to fret.

But as she turned to do just that, she nearly smacked into one of her Jounin and lost her reputation as an omniscient leader in the same move. Refraining to yell the man out of her way, she smiled tightly at him.

"Yes, Ebisu?"

The Jounin, looking either slightly constipated or worried, bowed to her and said, "Hokage-sama... the Orphans' Christmas tree is about to begin and... The orphans are here alright, but Santa Claus –that is to say, Iruka- isn't. I've just received a message from him. He's apparently too sick to come and... We have no one else available to play Santa."

Tsunade stared blankly at him for a second or two, during which her brain pointed out that yes, Ebisu had in one of his hands what looked like a crumpled red coat with a white lining, and yes, there was a steady growing level of noise approaching, the kind that can be produced only by an avalanche or a group of children. She had little hope it was the former.

She closed her eyes, racking her mind for minions who could be put in charge of that task. "Izumo? Kotetsu?"

"You assigned them to clean up after the Christmas Party and since they started by cleaning all the remains of alcohol, I don't think they're up to the job. And Raido has the week off, there's no telling where he can be."

Tsunade kept her eyes shut, as if it could prevent her from seeing reality. "ANBU?"

"Their syndicate petitioned after you made them pose for that calendar, now they refuse tasks that aren't directly linked to their job."

Tsunade groaned and opened her eyes. Reality was too much of a persistent bitch. "You?" she asked, without much hope.

"I'm starting my shift at the gates in ten minutes."

So it was really leaving her with only two choices. Either she took the costume and passed the next two hours trying to maintain a good henge in a room full of noisy brats with a migraine-addled brain, or she could go and explain to their guide why the orphans would have to go without a Christmas Tree this year.

Then Kurenai's voice, sweet-laden and cheerful, floated through the corridor to the Hokage's ears.

"Now, who wants to see Santa-Claus?"

"ME!" a chorus of happy squeaks cheered.

Tsunade snatched the red costume and glared at her subordinate. "Ten minutes? Then you have the time to go and fetch me a bottle of..." The picture of a Santa with a kid on his knee inhaling an alcoholic breath briefly entered her brain. "...water, damnit. I need to rehydrate."

Putting on the red cloack and moth-eaten false barb, Tsunade decided that this was probably going to be the worst Christmas ever.

*

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*

"Are you done already?" Kohonamaru asked, his tone bored. He absolutely refused to show his nervousness before that annoying girl, but he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the Hokage building and _quick_.

Hyuuga Hanabi straightened and desactivated her Byakugan. She sneered at her temporary sidekick. "Frightened now? I wanted to be sure that I didn't forget any hidden places. Unlike you, I'm not satisfied with a sloppy job."

Konohamaru swallowed any witty comeback –not a difficult task since none came to mind- deciding to play it cool. That Hyuuga prick would certainly not be so nonchalant if she had ever encountered the Hokage in full crazy old bat mode before, like _he_ had. He understood why Iruka-sensei had asked her to join. That eye-trick thing was certainly handy, but still, she was a pain. He adjusted the bag slung across his shoulder, the move making the sake bottles inside do a musical '_Chtonk'_.

"Fine. Let's go then." The lanky brunette fell in step besides him. They jumped across a few roofs before the girl, surprisingly, talked to him again.

"So, what kind of dirt do you think Iruka-sensei has on Ebisu-sensei?"

The young Sarutobi's brows arched up in surprise. "You mean, apart from his nasty habit of spying on the women's baths?"

Hanabi rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows about that. Surely it's something else."

Konohamaru nimbly overstepped a few sprouting pipes. "Ah, but does Ebisu-sensei know that everyone knows?" His chakra enhanced feet quickly caught the side of a chimney and he made a twirl in the air, momentarily facing his companion.

"But most importantly, what kind of dirt does he have on you, princess?"

The kunoichi frowned. "He has nothing on me." Shizune did, but she was not about to tell him that.

Konohamaru snorted. "Right, he asked you because he knew you just couldn't pass up a laugh. Or maybe that's because of your famed helping temperament?"

Hanabi growled. "Shut up. I'm pretty sure that in your case he didn't have to dig much!"

The boy just laughed. "Me? I actually volunteered. He caught me when I tried to sneak a bit of alcohol out of the Jounin Party yesterday. Told me he has a plan for me to find more booze."

"I don't believe you." She said her voice full of scorn.

"Suits you. But I can tell you, the benefits of being a real prankster like me is that you can hardly find anything to hold me over, I already have done too much to worry over punishment or my reputation." He injected more chakra into his feet and leaped ahead of her, quickly gaining speed.

Just before disappearing in a nearby alley, he shouted: "Try to remember that, stick in the mud!"

Hanabi stilled dead on her tracks and followed the stupid boy with furious eyes.

What a waste of Christmas morning.

*

oooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOOooo

*

Shizune awoke with a start, feeling slightly disoriented. That could have been because of the unfamiliar ceiling above her, barely discernible in the bleak morning light, but it was probably more due to the foreign sensation of an arm circling her waist.

Her mind started to pick up the thread that had led to that particular situation. The Christmas Party, and how they both had –with Iruka taking the lead-, decided to get revenge for years of unnecessary stress and compromises by ruining their bosses'Christmas, while keeping themselves safely out of the line of fire.

Iruka had no trouble thinking of a plan that would include Tsunade in his own vendetta against his blonde charge. He had rummaged a bit in the Hall in search of potential helpers, had found Ebisu (who apparently owed him big for some thing), Rock Lee (who could be manipulated, or rather, challenged into anything provided that you used the right words) and Konohamaru (as expected; the kid couldn't see a party in which he was not invited without trying to gatecrash it).

Shizune had added her own name to that unlikely Christmas elves team, and sent a note to Hanabi Hyuuga. She felt the tiniest bit of regret about it. Her note had been very polite, not a trace of threat there, yet she knew that she was forcing the girl's hand because she would have read her missive as a good Hyuuga would –with paranoia clouding her mind. Of course, it was not as if Shizune had real leverage on her: the girl had just one day came to her, ashen-faced, to ask if having a boy's tongue down her throat meant that she was going to be pregnant. For a 14 years old girl, even a Hyuuga, kissing a boy was not such a terrible act; the only threat here was the risk to be the laughing stock of Konoha's teenage population.

And then, when the whole plan was set up and there wasn't anything to do but wait to see it bear fruits, he had surprised her again and invited her back to his apartment, when she nearly had given up on any chance of anything happening that night. And well, nothing much would have happened, because even full of surprises the hot shinobi with a definite playful, devilish side was still a damn gentleman.

And then... _she_ had surprised herself. Well at least there were areas in which she could take the lead. She blushed at the memory, and shifted a bit. The movement made the arm around her waist slightly tighten its grasp. Good.

She smiled and brushed the caramel skin with her fingertips, tracing the slim muscles up to the hand resting on her breast, broad and square and delicate when touching. Still, she wriggled out of his embrace. She intended to use the implicit rule that in a newly formed couple or a one night stand, the first one who awoke had the right to cheat and groom a bit until they looked pleasantly refreshed and minty-breathed when the other awoke.

Her eyes scanned the room, searching for something to cover her naked skin. Iruka practiced the very male form of horizontal tidying up, meaning that a lot of his stuff was simply gathered in clumps on the floor. She picked up a fading blue bathrobe and made her way toward the bathroom.

Bypassing a clumsily decorated Christmas tree (the amount of orange pointing to a heavy Naruto influence), she stopped at a large bay window. Konoha was laid before her eyes in all its Christmas glory.

And that was not much, really. Now if it had been a cheesy romance movie, the landscape would have been covered in snow, a perfect white blanket symbolizing her new start in relationships, or love, or whatever crap could be symbolized by a layer of snow.

Instead of that Konoha's weather was behaving far more in character, albeit with a less dramatic sense, and from a sky like molten iron was drizzling a cold rain persistent enough to turn even the trees to mud.

That suited Shizune just fine. She didn't think that she had made a new start in anything and neither had Iruka. They were two meek persons that, just for one day, had decided not to be. Just for one day, they made time for them, they who usually dedicated it to others.

But apart from that, no, nothing had changed much. Tomorrow she'd start her day as she usually did, at Tsunade's side or at the hospital if her presence was needed there most. As for Iruka, well...

She heard a sigh and a rustle behind her, and turned to find Iruka raising his head and propping it on his hand. His chocolate brown hair messily fell around his face and she fought the urge to run her hand in it, as much to straighten the strands than to feel their silkiness one last time.

The academy teacher smiled at her. "Nice view."

Shizune's eyes turned briefly toward the window as she smiled back. "A bit wet for my tastes."

Iruka's smile grew while his eyes darkened slightly. "I was not talking about the city."

... as for Iruka, well, she still couldn't say what would come tomorrow, but as for today apparently his mind was set. And provided that she could persuade him to drop the lame pick-up lines...

...It was shaping up to be the greatest Christmas Day ever.

THE END

**Wow, my first het. I'm so proud. *wipes tear* I hope you enjoyed it Pamy-chou, if that the case, it's worth the tears, sweat and blood it caused me to write it. -_-**

**Next****! Inner Obstacle, chapter 4! ****That is, if Pamy-chou doesn't forget about it again! XD (don't worry honey, I know you college students have a lot of things in your mind xx) **


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